Now that Tax Day is here, it is important to point out just how many working families were left out of the $1.5 trillion deal pushed by President Donald Trump and passed in December. We were promised “big” tax cuts, increases in our wages and “major” job creation.

Instead 13 million people have had their health care taken away. Most of us have seen meager, temporary increases in our paychecks (which will turn into tax increases in the next decade). And the new law has also led to an inability to itemize our taxes. Meanwhile, 129 major companies have been identified as receiving $60 billion in total tax cuts.

If we have learned anything, it is this: Trickle-down economics does not work — and it never has! This year, mega-corporations are getting a tax windfall and instead of creating jobs or increasing wages in a meaningful way, most of them are doing what we expected: buying back stocks, rewarding wealthy stockholders and giving executive bonuses.

It’s time that working families become the focus of our nation’s policies.

Mary Kilgore,

Ponte Vedra Beach

The Jacksonville Symphony should

address its unfair security policy

I have been a patron of the Jacksonville Symphony Coffee Series for two years, and I fully enjoy the monthly concerts.

My concern is with the security system that has been in effect since last October. Each month, only people with a bag or purse are checked by security. This means that 99 percent of women are stopped, but since most men don’t carry a bag, they are not checked by security personnel. This is despite the fact the vast majority of mass shooters in the U.S. have been men.

Over the past two months, I have talked to representatives of the Jacksonville Symphony and the security company. I have been told that this policy is the one that the Jacksonville Symphony and the security company agreed upon.

This is gender discrimination!

If patron safety is a priority for the Jacksonville Symphony, then everyone — male and female — should be checked at the security checkpoints.

Susan Hamner, Jacksonville

No need to tear down the Hart

ramp to improve Downtown traffic

As someone who travels the Hart Bridge to and from Downtown every day at rush hour, I would like to offer my input.

Instead of tearing down the raised expressway to Downtown, install entrance and exit ramps to access the Stadium District. The clover-leaf exit ramps could be built over the retention pond east of the Channel 12 TV tower. This would provide access to the Stadium District while preserving the easy access to Downtown. It would also greatly enhance the traffic flow getting to and leaving the stadium on game day.

In addition, a second lane should be added going north to Martin Luther King Drive. At 5 p.m., the traffic backs up over the entire bridge with cars trying to use this route.

If you are trying to revitalize Downtown, it makes no sense to make it harder to get Downtown.

But if you really want to provide better access to Downtown, extend the southern access to the bridge from where it dead-ends into Emerson Street onto Interstate 95.

It would create an exit on Interstate 95 between University Boulevard and Emerson Street. This would provide an expressway route to Downtown that completely bypasses the overland bridge.